Kevin Day: Standy Uppy

Delicious line of black comedy runs through show at 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

It’s been seen many times before that a comic returning to the Fringe after a decade or more’s absence proves to be less than match-fit for a gruelling August. A steward’s enquiry won’t be necessary after Kevin Day’s run of Standy Uppy is over; he’s simply performing at the top of his game.

High-profile court cases have been on his mind recently and he has plenty to say about Oscar Pistorius and Rebekah Brooks, as well as having a slew of opinions on the latter’s ‘posh but dim’ husband, Charlie, whom Day had previously worked beside on a TV horse racing show. Don’t listen to any hangover cures from Brooks would be Day’s main advice.

His vague theme is that there are two sides to every story, although he mischievously insists at the beginning that everything in the show is a metaphor for Scottish independence. Still, he doesn’t give UKIP an inch and his passion for the NHS is unbridled; though he has been left bruised in the pocket area by previously announcing that hospital workers attending any of his shows would get a free drink afterwards. A delicious line of black comedy runs all the way through Day’s hour and he even has time to bring on a ghost story element from leftfield.